me at brake world

I can't sleep, and the gray is pushing against my window.
Let's put together some images.

I'm obsessed with the idea of gray.
That such a simple and often overlooked word could hold such imagery, emotion, and meaning.

Gray is an idea of being in between things. It is in between colors and in between emotion. It is the cloudy sky on a dreary day but it is also the early morning, and a feeling of anticipation. It could be considered the neutral, or to represent those who live their lives between the absolute morals of others. It can leave one feeling empty or be totally overpowering.

Maybe you associate it with depression, but I feel that is much too simplistic. Gray is simply not as easily classed as bubblegum pink or blood red, perky or violent, or forest green and sea blue, growing and calming, the all encompassing gray is something much much more powerful.

I can think of nothing better to describe what I am currently obsessed with in imagery, both photographic and literary.

Stopping in the middle of the room, I dropped to the floor. A soft orange light
coming from the hallway crept across the room to meet the darkness seeping in
at the window. Slowly, I found myself moving. I stretched, contorting my body,
finding muscles long unused, straining into shapes with no name. And, pushing
against the night, I burned.

I stood, and caught myself in a mirror, shirt clinging to shaking ribs, heart
beneath resounding. I was as a beast released, too long caged in the small
private places of city living, unable to move for fear of upsetting some
delicate something. It was momentary, no true freedom to be found between
beige walls, but a hope for things to come.

and I think to myself
as I watch the sun peak over building tops
how can one sleep
when there is a girl to kiss
before the train takes her to futures unknown
and roads to walk
with the first leaves of fall
softly trailing,
whispering

I just got off the phone with a friend of mine I used to consider my best friend when I was a kid.
Haven't seen him for a while though. We went our separate ways during high school.
He'd fallen through a skylight at his summer job, and can't eat anything solid.
Has a pretty positive attitude about it, expected to make full recovery.

Hopefully we're going to hang out next week while I'm back in massachusetts.
If it's right after I get my tonsils out, that would be pretty funny.
We could have ice cream.

I am going to make a book, it will be called "snapshots"
or
"snapshots: the gray days"

and it will be a collection of words
with maybe some pictures

and it will be small and you will leave it in your bathroom to read
when the sun is rising through fog
and you're tired of staring at the crack near your left toe

the summersick
sipping water and swallowing
with eyes clenched, subtly pained
brushing a fly off the windowsill
replacing the silence with the sound of a fan
feeling the cool air on your sweat
and
looking down to see your nails have grown
and
are blackened with the grime of time passed
while you were unaware

I want my art to affect people with simple emotion, not shock value. Not violence, not sex, but the small things that make us human.